The Subaru Telescope in Hawaii is adding a new instrument to its arsenal, one that will observe the cosmos through a compound eye.
The compound eye will allow Subaru to observe about 2,400 objects in space, offering an extremely wide field of view and allowing simultaneous spectroscopic observation of thousands of objects. Subaru’s new instrument will shed light on long-standing questions in astrophysics for researchers, chief among them the formation and evolution of galaxies and the universe in which they reside.
The instrument is the Prime Focus Spectrograph and is one of the leading instruments in the next era of the Subaru Telescope. The spectrograph will collect light in the visible and some of the infrared regions. The telescope will improve the telescope’s ability to observe spectra from distant light sources.
“This is just a stepping stone towards ultimate goals such as long-term continuation of the operation, generating unprecedented scientific results and sharing the exciting news from Maunakea with the local community in full,” said Naoyuki Tamura, a professor at the Subaru Telescope. at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, in a statement to the observatory.
“The discoveries that will be made with this superb instrument are something that all the people of Hawaii can be proud of; to be at the center of such significant international cooperation and human endeavour,” added Tamura.
The spectrograph team will launch a survey of the big sky that will take place over the next five years or so. In total, the telescope’s 360 nights will be used to collect data on the millions of galaxies and hundreds of thousands of stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way and our nearest galactic neighbor, Andromeda.
The Subaru telescope has work to do. It reveals aspects of the universe from the amount of gases in it distant galaxies according to creepy ephemera rocket launches above our planet. Last year, data from Subaru (specifically observations from the Hyper Suprime-Cam telescope) revealed two very large ones quasar merger in the early universe, but the telescope also showed that the Kuiper belt might be larger than previously thought. In other words, the Subaru Telescope is multi-talented and balances its duties in deep space with those much closer to home.
Subaru’s new compound eye will build on the telescope’s legacy and give it a runway to make more history. How exactly will the spectrograph change our understanding of the universe? You’ll have to check Gizmodo for that in five years, when the telescope survey of the sky is complete.